Muslim Khatris

Muslim Khatri
	A Khatri nobleman, in Kitab-i tasrih al-aqvam by Col. James Skinner in (1778–1841)
Regions with significant populations
	• India • Pakistan • Europe • United States • Canada • Australia • Dubai • Saudi Arabia • United Kingdom
Languages
	• Punjabi • Urdu-Hindi
Religion
	Islam
Related ethnic groups
	Khatris • Aroras • Punjabi Sheikh

The Muslim Khatris are desandants of the Khatri community of Indian subcontinent which embraced Islam during medieval period. They are now mostly concentrated in Pakistani provinces of Punjab, Sindh, Azad Kashmir as well as northern India. The community is scattered throughout Punjab and Kutch region.

Origin

Khatris, from which Muslim Khatris are descended, are a Punjabi mercantile caste which claims to be Kshatriyas.^[1] The origins of the community lies in the Punjab region, and the word "Khatri" itself is a Punjabi form of Kshatriya.^[2]^[3]^[4]

History

Khatris are divided into different clans. Most of the Muslim Khatris were warriors and chieftains during the medieval era, many were employed as generals and soldiers under Mughal Empire. They slowly adopted agriculture and business for their survival. Khatris are one of the land owning group in the subcontinent. They were designated as martial race by the British.

Gujarat Sultanate

The mediaeval Gujarat Sultanate was founded by Zafar Khan, who was either a Punjabi Muslim Khatri^[5] or Rajput.^[6] Following Timur's invasion of the Delhi Sultanate, the Delhi Sultanate was devastated and weakened considerably, so he declared himself independent from Delhi in 1407, and formally established the Sultanate of Guzerat. The next sultan, his grandson Ahmad Shah I moved the capital to Ahmedabad in 1411. His successor Muhammad Shah II subdued most Rajput chieftains. The prosperity of the sultanate reached its zenith during the rule of Mahmud Begada. He also subdued most Gujarati Rajput chieftains and built a navy off the coast of Diu. The Moghul emperor Humayun attacked Gujarat in 1535 and briefly occupied it, during which Bombay, Bassein& Damaon would become a Portuguese colony, thereafter Bahadur Shah was killed by the Portuguese while making a deal in 1537. The end of the sultanate came in 1573, when Akbar annexed Sultanate of Guzerat into his empire. The last ruler Muzaffar Shah III was taken a prisoner to Agra. In 1583, he escaped from the prison and with the help of the nobles succeeded to regain the throne for a short period before being defeated by Akbar's general Abdul Rahim Khan-I-Khana.^[7]

Saudagaran-e-Delhi

In addition, the Qaume-e-Punjaban community of Delhi are also of Khatri ancestry. Historically, this community lived in Delhi, and other North Indian towns, but after the Partition of India, a lot of these people moved to Pakistan. In Pakistan also, the Muslim Khatris are engaged in various occupations.

References

^ McLane, John R. (25 July 2002). Land and Local Kingship in Eighteenth-Century Bengal. Cambridge University Press. p. 131. ISBN 978-0-521-52654-8.
^ Fenech, Louis E.; McLeod, W. H. (11 June 2014). Historical Dictionary of Sikhism. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-3601-1.
^ John Stratton Hawley; Gurinder Singh Mann (1993). Studying the Sikhs: Issues for North America. State University of New York Press. p. 179. ISBN 9780791414255. Khatri (khatri) "merchant-caste." Although the name derives from Sanskrit kshatriya, which designates the warrior or ruling castes, khatri in Punjabi usage refers to a cluster of merchant castes including Bedis, Bhallas and Sodhis
^ Hardy; Hardy, Thomas (7 December 1972). The Muslims of British India. CUP Archive. p. 279. ISBN 978-0-521-09783-3.
^ Subrahmanyam, Sanjay (2024). Across the Green Sea: Histories from the Western Indian Ocean, 1440-1640. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-1-4773-2879-8. The latter sultanate was founded by a former Tughluq governor, perhaps from a family of Punjabi Khatri converts, who took the title Muzaffar Shah in the early fifteenth century but reigned for only a short time.
Wink, André (2003). Indo-Islamic society: 14th - 15th centuries. BRILL. p. 143. ISBN 978-90-04-13561-1. Similarly, Zaffar Khan Muzaffar, the first independent ruler of Gujarat was not a foreign muslim but a Khatri convert, of low subdivision called Tank, originally from southern Punjab.
Kapadia, Aparna (16 May 2018). Gujarat: The Long Fifteenth Century and the Making of a Region. Cambridge University Press. p. 120. ISBN 978-1-107-15331-8. the Gujarati historian Sikandar does narrate the story of their ancestors having once been Hindu 'Tanks', a branch of Khatris
Misra, S. C. (Satish Chandra) (1963). The rise of Muslim power in Gujarat; a history of Gujarat from 1298 to 1442. Internet Archive. New York, Asia Pub. House. p. 137. Zafar Khan was not a foreign muslim. He was a convert to Islam from a sect of the Khatris known as Tank.
Khan, Iqtidar Alam (2004). Gunpowder and Firearms: Warfare in Medieval India. Oxford University Press. p. 57. ISBN 978-0-19-566526-0. Zafar Khan (entitled Muzaffar Shah) himself was a convert to Islam from a sub-caste of the Khatris known as Tank.
^ Stein, Burton (12 April 2010). A History of India. John Wiley & Sons. p. 142. ISBN 978-1-4051-9509-6. Ahmedabad in Gujarat received its great congregational mosque in 1423, though it had been a province of Delhi since 1297. It was built by Ahmad Shah, a converted Rajput, who, when governor, declared the province an independent sultanate in 1411.
Chandra, Satish (2004). Medieval India ( From Sultanat to the Mughals), PART ONE Delhi Sultanat ( 1206-1526). Har-Anand Publications. p. 218. ISBN 9788124110645. Sadharan a Rajput who converted to Islam
Mahajan, VD (2007). History of Medieval India. S. Chand. p. 245. ISBN 9788121903646. Zafar Khan, a son of Rajput Convert to Islam was appointed as Governor of Gujarat in 1391AD
Jenkins, Everett (2010). The Muslim Diaspora - A comprehensive reference to the spread of Islam in Asia, Africa, Europe and the America, 570 - 1799. McFarland & Company Inc. p. 275. ISBN 9780786447138.
Kapadia, Aparna (2018). Gujarat: The Long Fifteenth Century and the Making of a Region. Cambridge University Press. p. 8. ISBN 9781107153318.
^ Mitra, Sudipta (2005). Gir Forest and the Saga of the Asiatic Lion. Indus Publishing. ISBN 978-81-7387-183-2.

Muslim Khatris

Origin

History

Gujarat Sultanate

Saudagaran-e-Delhi

References

Further reading

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